“I understand how you figured out where Zane was holding the hostages,” Virginia Sutter said. “But how did you deal with the timing of the helicopter?”
“There are a lot of small, uninhabited islands in the San Juans,” Jack said. “When I boarded the plane in San Francisco, everyone involved knew that the endgame was on. Anson and Max used a boat to get to one of the little islands that was within eyesight of Azalea Island. They had eyes on the house when Knight and Sloan docked their cruiser with me on board. The only question was whether I would be conscious or unconscious. I was ninety-six percent sure that I would be conscious.”
“Why were you so certain of that?” Charlotte asked.
“Two reasons,” Jack said. “Zane thought that as long as he had Winter, he could manipulate me. He was right, at least to some extent. I also knew that once I was under his control, he would be eager to prove to me that he was the big winner. He wouldn’t want to have to wait for me to come out of a drugged sleep.”
Octavia raised her brows. “How could you be so certain?”
Jack hesitated. Winter stepped in to answer the question for him.
“Jack has a talent for being able to predict the actions of the bad guys,” she said.
Jack winced.
“I see.” Octavia regarded Jack with a thoughtful expression. “You must find that a rather uncomfortable sort of talent at times.”
“You have no idea,” Jack said. “As I was saying, when Anson and Max saw me walk along the dock and go into the house, they notified Cabot and Sam to get the helo in the air.”
Xavier had been lounging against a wall, arms folded in a manner that mirrored Cabot’s stance on the opposite wall. He spoke up.
“We figured Zane would move fast once he had Jack,” he said. “It was Jack’s job to provide some sort of diversion so that Cabot and Sam could extract the hostages.”
“He went in knowing he was going to have to improvise,” Anson said. “But he also knew approximately how long he had so he could time the distraction.”
“I saw the smoke coming out of the chimney when Knight and Sloan brought me to the island,” Jack said. “I figured I could work with that.”
“From the aerial photos we could tell there were two docks on the island,” Anson said, “the big one in front of the old house and another, smaller one hidden in a pocket beach. It seemed reasonable that Zane would have stashed his getaway boat there. When Victoria Sloan snapped out of her trance and went after Zane, Knight jumped into the cruiser at the big dock and made a run for the mainland. But we had alerted the Coast Guard just before it all went down. They picked him up. We gave Sloan to them, as well. I hear both Sloan and Knight are trying to cut deals.”
“What shattered the trance that Victoria Sloan was in when she walked out of the house?” Charlotte asked.
Winter looked at her. “I think it was probably the explosion that occurred when the house went up in flames.”
“Turns out Sloan had discovered the pocket beach,” Max said. “She confronted Zane with it and he assured her that the two of them would escape together, leaving Knight behind. When she came out of the trance she knew exactly where to find Zane.”
“I see.” Octavia shuddered. “It is frightening to think about how it all could have gone horribly wrong.”
Winter smiled at the older woman. “My advice is to focus on how it all went right. That is what I’m going to try very hard to do.”
Octavia smiled. “You know, I do believe you make a very good point. I am just glad that Quinton Zane is no longer among the living.”
Jack looked at Winter, his gaze icy-hot. “In addition to figuring out where Zane was holding the hostages, we had one other very crucial advantage.”
“What was that?” Virginia asked.
“I told Zane he had made his biggest mistake at the beginning when he tried to use Winter to get to me,” Jack said. “He had no way of knowing that she was capable of destroying his entire professional mercenary team.”
“Well, there were only two of them,” Winter said. She knew she was probably blushing. “And I could only get at one of them, Victoria Sloan. Zane and Knight never came upstairs while I was in residence.”
Xavier’s eyes widened in awed curiosity. “You’re a for-real hypnotist?”
Winter glanced at Jack.
“Tell him,” he said. “You’re among friends here.”
He was right, she realized. She was among friends. It felt good.
She turned back to Xavier. “Yes.”
“Excellent,” Xavier said, waxing enthusiastic. “So what did you do to Victoria Sloan to make her suddenly decide to leave?”
“Gave her a post-hypnotic suggestion,” Winter said. “I told her that when I used a certain trigger phrase, she would realize that Quinton Zane was going to betray her and that she and Knight had been set up to take the fall for the murder of the Tazewells and Jack and me. Victoria was in a profession where betrayal is no doubt commonplace. That’s what made it easy for me to implant the suggestion.”
Winter stopped there and waited because she was pretty sure she knew what was coming.
“You can really hypnotize people?” Xavier said, not bothering to try to conceal his excitement.
“Most people can be hypnotized, at least to some extent,” she said.
“Cool,” Xavier said. “Go ahead, try to hypnotize me.”
“No,” Winter said.
“Why not?” Xavier demanded.
“She doesn’t do it for fun,” Jack said. He did not take his eyes off Winter. “And she doesn’t do it to entertain others. She only does it when there is a very good reason to do it.”
“Could you teach me how to hypnotize people?” Xavier asked.
“Maybe,” Winter said. “If you have an innate talent for it and if you agree to abide by the code.”
“What’s the code?”
“The code is that you promise to use hypnosis only for a very good reason,” Winter said.
“So, what’s a good reason?” Xavier demanded eagerly.
“You mean, aside from convincing an armed kidnapper to give her a key and then turn on her employer, thus helping to rescue several people?” Jack asked.
“Yeah,” Xavier said, undaunted, “aside from that, what’s a good reason to use hypnosis?”
“You’ll know,” Winter said. “Figuring out your own personal code is part of what being a family is all about.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Jack swallowed some whiskey, lowered the glass and gazed into flames on the hearth. “It’s been nearly three days now and I’m still having a hard time dealing with the fact that it’s over. After more than two decades of watching and waiting for Quinton Zane and all the while knowing that he was probably alive, knowing that he was probably watching and waiting, too, it’s difficult to believe that it’s finished. Downright surreal.”
“You’re just not used to the concept of certainty,” Winter said. She drank some of the wine she had poured for herself. It was her second glass and she was feeling mellow and wise. “Give it time.”
They were back in her cottage in Eclipse Bay. The days since the events on Azalea Island had passed in a blur. They had spent the nights in a hotel room, although Jack’s family had offered their spare bedrooms. She and Jack had craved privacy.
That first night they had literally thrown themselves into each other’s arms. The lovemaking had been infused with a frantic, adrenaline-fueled intensity. Afterward they had collapsed into an exhausted sleep.
Jack and his brothers and Anson had spent a great deal of time talking to the police and the FBI. On the day after the incidents, Jack had been obliged to fly down to California to give a statement to the cops investigating the death of Grayson Fitzgerald Tazewell. That had involved another conversation with someone from the Secur
ities and Exchange Commission. Evidently the death of a hedge fund founder who had left a company on the brink of bankruptcy had caused a lot of ripples in the financial world as well as in the world of law enforcement.
Cutler, Sutter & Salinas had received some splashy media attention, which had allowed Anson to shine in his role as spokesperson for the firm. Winter suspected that there would be a wave of new business for the agency.
Jack contemplated her words while he swallowed some more whiskey. He set the glass down with great precision and looked at her.
“You’re wrong,” he said. Behind the lenses of his glasses his eyes heated with the ice-and-fire that indicated he had done some important calculations and come up with even more important conclusions. “I do know what certainty feels like.”
“Is that right?” She tucked one jean-clad leg under her thigh and swirled the wine in her glass. “How does it feel, Mr. I-never-go-with-one-hundred-percent-unless-the-situation-is-past-tense?”
“It feels like what I feel for you,” he said. “I love you, Winter.”
The simplicity of the statement, delivered with complete certainty, stole her breath.
She stared at him, unable to speak because the torrent of joy left no room for words.
She set her wineglass down on the new coffee table and flung herself across the short distance that separated them, straight into Jack’s arms. He let the soft weight of her body push him back into the corner of the big chair. He gathered her close against him.
“Does this mean you feel something similar for me?” he asked.
Hope, longing and anticipation blazed in his eyes.
“Yes.” She used both hands to carefully remove his glasses and set them on the coffee table. “Yes. I love you, Jack Lancaster. I fell in love with you the day you booked your first meditation session with me. One hundred percent.”
“Is that so?” He speared his fingers through her hair. “What was it about that first session that made you fall for me?”
“So many things. I loved your passion for your work. I loved your sense of honor. Your integrity. I loved the fact that you were willing to give my meditation therapy a try and that you took my advice about changing your dreamscape. I loved the fact that you love your foster family. I loved knowing that if you ever gave your heart, it would be for real and forever.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “You really thought you saw all those things in me during that first session?”
“Yep. You’re not the only one with pretty good intuition. There was something else I loved about you, too.”
“What was that?”
She smiled a wicked smile. “You are incredibly sexy. I knew you’d be a terrific lover. Your turn. What was it about me that made you fall in love?”
“Everything.”
She gripped the lapels of his shirt. “I want details. I want a list.”
Jack laughed.
It was, she realized, the first time she had ever heard him laugh. The sound was gloriously intoxicating. It was the laugh of a man who has been freed from the past. The laugh of a man who has discovered joy.
After a while he caught her face gently between his hands. “I am one hundred percent certain that I love everything about you.”
He brought her mouth down to his and kissed her for a very long time. After a while he pulled her to her feet and drew her down the hall to the shadows of the bedroom.
She forgot about asking for a list detailing all the reasons he loved her. There was no need for one. When Jack was one hundred percent certain, he was one hundred percent certain.
* * *
• • •
Her future career path came to her on the fragments of a dream. She opened her eyes, absorbing the possibilities and implications. She smiled.
“Jack? Are you awake?”
“I don’t think so,” he mumbled into the pillow.
“I know what I want to do with the rest of my life.”
“How nice for you. Can this wait until morning?”
“No, because this involves you, too.”
She told him what she had planned for her new career.
“Huh,” Jack said.
“Is that all you have to say?”
“Do I have any options?”
“Well, no.”
“I didn’t think so.” He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her down across his chest. “Why don’t you tell me again about how sexy I am?”
“Okay.”
“Wait, before we get back to that, I do have a question for you.”
“What?” she asked.
“Will you marry me?”
She smiled. “Yes, I will marry you.”
“Good. Now we can resume our regularly scheduled programming.”
He rolled her onto her back, came down on top of her and kissed her until nothing else mattered.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
The wedding was held the following month in Eclipse Bay. The venue was the town library, because that was where other important civic events, such as the celebration of Arizona Snow’s birthday, were held.
The bride dressed in the librarian’s office. She was not alone. Her sister, Alice, and her parents, Helen and Susan, were with her. For once they were not dressed in trek gear. They were all wearing dresses and heels. Winter felt a rush of pride. Her family cleaned up well. Her family was beautiful.
“What do you mean, you’re going into the private investigation business?” Helen said.
She did not sound startled; more like intrigued.
Enthusiasm lit Alice’s eyes. “That’s so exciting.”
Susan got a considering look. “How will you use your hypnosis talent as a private investigator?”
“Jack already specializes in old and very cold cases,” Winter explained, slipping one foot into a dainty, high-heeled shoe. “In cases like that memories are vague. The clients themselves have forgotten many of the details. And then there are the small insights they don’t bother to mention because it doesn’t occur to them that they might be important. By the time people get to Jack they are usually desperate for answers. I can offer my services to help them recall past events and associations.”
“Hold still while I adjust your veil,” Alice said. “I can see where your talent would be useful in some cases, but is there enough work in the cold case business to keep you busy?”
“Anson says he thinks there will be plenty of work once we do some proper marketing. Until now Jack has never been interested in the promotion aspect of his work. Also, he preferred to specialize in cases involving arson and death by fire. But as his partner I intend to expand the scope of work. Anson agrees with me. I’ve got his full support.”
“Will you run the business out of Eclipse Bay?” Susan asked.
“Eclipse Bay is going to be our home between cases.” Winter stepped into the other shoe. “Jack can do his writing here and I’ve got some meditation students here, as well. But we’ll also have an apartment in Seattle. There’s an empty office at Cutler, Sutter and Salinas. Anson is having Jack’s name and mine put on it this week.”
Helen chuckled. “You and Anson Salinas seem to have this all worked out. How does Jack feel about it?”
“Jack seems okay with everything,” Winter said. “I’ve been sort of surprised, to tell you the truth. He’s really into the positive-thinking thing these days.”
Alice grinned. “That’s because he’s in love with you.”
“And I am in love with him,” Winter said. “Everything feels right with Jack.”
Tears sparkled in Susan’s eyes. She drew Winter into her arms for a careful hug. “It is so good to see you so happy.”
Alice gave Winter a knowing smile. “Not just happy. Joyful. You look beautiful, my sister.”
Winter felt the moisture well u
p. “Thank you, my sister.”
“Don’t you dare cry and ruin my makeup work,” Alice said.
Helen gave a little heartfelt sigh. “After all these years, it’s wonderful to know you found your passion, Winter. We all love you so much, darling. Never forget that.”
“How could I?” Winter said. She felt her own eyes mist up. “I love the three of you, too. My family.”
“Always,” Alice said.
There was a sharp, warning rap and then the door snapped open. Arizona Snow, dressed in freshly pressed military camo from another era and boots that had been polished to a high gloss, stuck her head into the room.
“Everything good to go in here?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Alice said.
She hurried out of the room. Susan followed her. Helen paused at the door to blow Winter a kiss.
“We’ll see you at the altar,” she said.
She disappeared down the hall.
Arizona gave Winter a head-to-toe survey and nodded once, satisfied.
“You and Jack were made for each other,” she announced. “I knew it right off at the start. That’s why I made sure you got neighboring cottages.”
Winter laughed. “So that was not a coincidence?”
“No such thing as coincidence.” Arizona offered her arm. “Ready to do this?”
“Yes,” Winter said. “I’m ready.”
Arizona walked her down the hall and into the main room of the library, where most of the citizens of Eclipse Bay were gathered. The staff had set up every available folding chair, but the crowd overflowed into the stacks.
Arizona brought Winter to a halt at the top of the aisle created by the rows of seats. Jack, with Anson, Max and Cabot behind him, waited for her at the altar. On the opposite side stood Alice, Susan and Helen.
Arizona raised one hand. The head librarian, Mrs. Henderson, who also happened to be an accomplished pianist, launched into the bridal music.
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